The End of a Great First Birthday! Me covered with cake, and Mommy & Daddy nearby!

As you can see...that delicate thing didn't last very long. Though I still was only using one hand. A few seconds after this picture was taken, I actually dug in with my other hand. I guess I'm a right hander....Mmmmm banana cream cake!

It started with me just lightly touching the frosting with my finger, and delicately tasting it.

Pizza Pizza Pizza. My favorite part is the crust. Yum-my.

My Princess Tiara stayed on really good...that is until I found out it was there.

Me and My Daddy

Someone left the backdoor open, so I made a run for it. It didn't last for long, but for a few seconds I was Freeeeeeee!

Me and my cousin fighting over who was going to get to drum on the pan with the wooden spoon first. I won. Of course.

I got a lot of balloons, but I was more interested in the ribbons than the balloons. Go figure.

This little cake was all mine! No sharing!

Elmo on My Birthday Cake - He's so very very hot!

Happy Birthday To Me!

I know it's been a long time since I last talked to you all, but you have to realize that life for a little baby girl gets very very busy. After all, you have to have nap time at least twice a day. Then there is play time, time to investigate every cupboard and drawer, time to explore parts of the house I've never seen, time to stop and pick up every piece of lint or dog hair on the floor and eat them, time to sort through the dog dish and pick out the chicken flavored pieces - and eat them. Then there's snacking time, milk and juice drinking time, and my favorite time of all - gagging time. How anyone could conceivably expect me to keep up to date on my blog is certainly being unreasonable, if not downright naughty. Go sit on the naughty step! 1 minute for you!

But anyways, back to the story at hand. I turned one year-old today! I had a fabulous party with many adoring children bowing to my every command. I have learned to control the minds of others by simply screaming at a pitch normally only heard by dogs. You can honestly hear their wills breaking as my volume increases. I got lots of presents, most involving spinning or flying balls, which I enjoyed greatly. I actually got my own little cake to eat and it was yummy. They had the common sense to make it a banana cream filling, and since I LOOOOOOOVE bananas (and can eat an entire one in a sitting), I was one happy birthday girl. The big cake had Elmo on it, who, as most of you know by now, is my dream man. I had Elmo balloons and napkins, and cups, and dolls, and music. The house was basically Elmo-fied for my amusement.
I'm sure it will be the talk of toddler world for quite some time.

Mommy and Daddy bought a new video-recorder just for the party, that records onto DVD's directly. They were very excited to be able to film my party, since our digital camera busted on Xmas, and they weren't able to get pictures of my first Xmas. They filmed everything, including me eating the little cake with my hands, and everyone wishing me a happy birthday, and everyone singing to me and my cake candle getting blown out. Daddy kept very busy documenting every moment of the party. Then after everyone went home, I heard him yelling something about a "disc error" and how it erased every bit of what he'd taped. He was very unhappy, and Mommy actually cried. I felt bad for them, so to take their minds off it, I leaned over and bit my brother in the arm and made him cry. It pretty much worked. At least they took still pictures too.

Speaking of biting, that's one of my favorite things to do, not that I have ten teeth. I'm like that little girl in the movie "Lemony Snickets". I bite through everything - books, boxes, dog toys, wood - pretty much anything that crossed my mouth gets bit. I even chew on the stair carpet as I'm crawling up...I mean, it's at eye level! Why shouldn't I try to tear out some tasty carpet fibers? So now anytime I get near Mommy or Daddy, they are always trying to give me a binky to plug up my mouth. They have no idea that it only takes me a second to spit it out when I spot a nice patch of skin!

I'm still gagging myself. I don't know why it appeals to me, but it does. I never gag to the point of throwing up, but if you like to hear gagging noises, then you are going to love me a lot! Last week I shoved my hand down my throat and gagged. Daddy pulled out my hand, and I quickly shoved it back in to gag again. We did this about twenty times until he finally gave me a binky. Speaking of gagging, another thing that happened last week was a particularly messy diaper. Not normal messy...I mean REALLY wet and messy (and stinky)! Daddy started to change my diaper, and then these LOUD gagging noises started coming out of his mouth. He screamed to my Mom to take over and then he ran into the bathroom making even louder gagging noises. It scared me, and I cried....I guess he threw up - the wussy...Hey Dad? Try sitting in it, OK? No where to escape? Yeah, I'm twice the man you are!

I'm still crusing around, but I'm getting better at climbing and standing with only one hand balancing myself. I still do the army crawl, but I've been mixing in some new steps by getting on my hands and knees for the last couple feet. I like standing a lot, and though it usually is accompanied by a lot of deep knee bends and jumping back up, I expect that I'll be entirely mobile soon.

I want to thank everyone who came to my party today, and also everyone who called me to wish me a happy day or sent a beautiful card. It was great, and I didn't even cry once during the party...and that's pretty impressive!